The Cost of GOP Racial Appeals

Eduardo Moisés Peñalver November 28, 2012 - 10:44am

There has been a lot of discussion of this chart:[1]I want to recommend the ongoing conversation at Talking Points Memo, where Josh Marshall has been posting a very interesting series of r[2]eflections byvoters of color (of various backgrounds) about how they have taken conservatives' racialized attacks on Obama as assaults on their own status as Americans. I'm hopeful that this most recent election may have been the tipping point for sensible conservatives who are uncomfortable with the GOP's Southern Strategy and appeals to nativist sentiment, of which this chart is at least partially the fruit. But I've been disappointed with the conversation since the election. It's going to take significantly more than comprehensive immigration reform to reverse the trends reflected in the chart.